How to use Tinyurl.com dynamically

[MoroccoIT]

I have a feedback Form from which my visitors send their views. At times, I see very long URLs get submitted via my Form and get entered into my database. But, when displaying the URL, my page gets distorted..

Is there a way I can script this so I can automatically convert this long URL to a small url using TinyURLcom for instance - like what Twitter does..

i.e. I want to shorten this long URL automatically before it is inserted into the database

From:

http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?t
ype=3&campid=5336224516&toolid=10001&customid=tiny-
hp&ext=unicycle&satitle=unicycle

To

http://tinyurl.com/bv5tgg

Thank you.

-AJ

[acoder]

If you want to create a Tiny URL.com URL, then you will have to make a HTTP request to the create.php page of TinyURL.com, but if the only reason for this is the display, then how about shortening the URL when displaying, e.g.

<a href="http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?type=3&campid=5336224516&toolid=10001&customid=tiny-hp&ext=unicycle&satitle=unicycle">http://rover.ebay.com/...</a>

or specify link text as well as the link itself.

[MoroccoIT]

aCoder -

Your solution would work only if I have a field that collects URLs only, however, my field is a textarea, the visitors are allowed to put text in this field, but at times, they paste URLs too within the text – that is the issue I am facing with.

If there is a long URL berried within the text, how do I shorten it or worse case scenario, how do I prevent/strip a URL before it gets inserted into the database.

Thanks
-AJ

[acoder]

Oh, I see. Well, in that case, parse the field value. You could use a regular expression to replace links with the shorter display by using REReplace.